


i will be brave for you

by speckledfeathers



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adult Richie Tozier, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Canon Compliant, Coming Out, Eddie is only mentioned, Gay Richie Tozier, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Past Character Death, Post-Canon, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Richie Tozier Has PTSD, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier is a Mess, Soft Richie Tozier, Stan is mentioned as well, Swearing, but it's richie so that should be obvious, like a lot of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27570223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speckledfeathers/pseuds/speckledfeathers
Summary: richie tozier honors eddie kaspbrak by doing something very spur of the moment and absolutely terrifying
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	i will be brave for you

**Author's Note:**

> this is relatively short, but it took me some time to write because i kept getting too emotional and had to take a lot of breaks. i hope it resonates with some of you like it did with me.

For fuck’s sake, if _one more_ goddamn person dared to ask him if he was ready, he was going to lose it.

Richie couldn’t necessarily blame them for acting strange right now. It was an uncharacteristically quiet night for him, and multiple people had caught him pacing in his room with a cup of water clamped tightly in his hand. He was afraid of somehow breaking the glass, but if he loosened his grip it might slip right out and shatter on the floor. He also remembered being asked if he wanted anything stronger, but he couldn’t remember his answer.

“Alright Rich, I know this is going to be a little weird, but you’ve got this.” Now he was backstage, wringing his hands as he waited on the edge of the curtain. There was a friendly but firm grip on his shoulder, but he brushed it off. “Sometimes you just gotta jump into the deep end. Get back on that horse. Right?”

_“It’s been five months.”_ Five months since he left Derry alone and sat in his apartment wishing he had never gone at all. Five months since he cried himself to sleep over the missing piece in his heart that he had only just remembered was missing at all. But of course, it had also been five months since his last show, which is what everyone else was thinking. He had cancelled seven shows between then and now, and felt practically bullied into showing up tonight.

So, he showed up.

“Five months, whatever. Get out there and kill it.” Such wise words. It instilled absolutely no confidence in him.

The announcer currently at the mic was ready to have Richie walk out after him in just a few seconds, but the loud voice booming through the speakers entered his ears as muffled nonsense. Then the clapping began.

_What the fuck was he doing here?_

His feet carried him out in front of the audience on pure instinct. He waved, he reached the mic and offered up a fake smile. But it wasn’t until the theater went dark and he was left in the bright halo of the spotlight that every single messed up puzzle piece shifted inside him.

_Seriously, what the fuck was he doing here?_

Nothing about this felt right. How was he supposed to get up here and spew garbage jokes that he hated while egging on the few laughs he managed to strangle from the crowd? He was supposed to just, what? Smile with them? Make stupid faces and cater to the people sitting in uncomfortable seats for an hour and a half?

**Nah. Fuck that. Fuck it.**

The longer Richie stood there, the louder the murmurs from the crowd became. The dark theater hid their faces from view but he knew they must be staring at him like he had lost his mind.

The spotlight was making him sick to his stomach. He made the mistake of looking up at it with one of his hands lazily blocking his eyes as he squinted through the pain and the nausea. His other palm met with the mic as it sat in its place on the stand, and it wobbled against his weight. He stumbled, taking a step to steady himself.

Richie could hear Eddie screaming. 

His eyes clamped shut and his mind dragged him back to the darkness of the caverns as he hit the ground, finally free of the deadlights. 

Eddie was there, smiling above him, and Richie was trying so hard to fight through the fog in his brain to figure out what had just happened and why Eddie was so close. Something bad was coming...

_“What the fuck, man? This is what we get after waiting months? This is shit!”_ A particularly loud man in the back of the theater broke through Richie’s flashback and planted him right back on stage.

There was movement off to the side and Richie saw his manager start to have a fit, but Richie held up his hand to tell him to stay put and be quiet.

Richie grabbed the mic. He took a breath. And then he took a few steps towards the edge of the stage.

“Uh yeah, hi everyone. It’s been awhile right? A few months. Five months.” His casual tone was almost enough to make them believe that he was really, finally, starting his act. But the audience wasn’t quite convinced, with only a few people giving a halfhearted cheer and some soft claps.

“As I’m sure you guys know, my name is Richie Tozier.” Fingers lightly tapped a rhythm against the mic as he introduced himself. Feet moved slowly and aimlessly. Eyes were glued to the worn wood of the stage. The thoughts racing through his mind were all heading somewhere, and Richie was convinced that he needed to follow them. That, or he would be dragged along with them anyway.

He cleared his throat and it echoed through the speakers. “Before I get going, I just want to say that this— this really wasn’t how I thought tonight was gonna go. But you know, I’m up here and something is— _something is happening.”_ Richie was following the line of the stage where it ended, back and forth, free hand starting to move along with his words.

The entire theater was silent as they listened, just as curious about where this was going as Richie was.

In between the words, as the quiet settled between the syllables and left a funny feeling in his chest, Richie was finding his way. He gulped, tensing with a bit of anticipation as the next part of his impromptu speech came to him.

“You guys ever have those childhood best friends that uh, you forgot about? But then something reminds you of them and suddenly you’re like _holy shit!_ What the fuck else have I forgotten? Is my entire life a lie?” A sad chuckle followed his words. “A lot of us out there had fucked up childhoods, and uh, this one specific summer of mine was _extremely_ fucked up. But my friends from my hometown in Maine.. you know, they put up with me. I think they maybe even liked me a little bit. And if it weren’t for them, I would have had no friends at all. I was a fuckin loser, guys. But that was probably pretty obvious, you guys knew that already. That’s why you’re here, right?”

His last comment prompted a few whistles and a single _‘we love you!’_ from someone near the front. Richie scoffed and shook his head.

“Well, these friends of mine.. we grew apart. It happens, you know? But five months ago, we got together for the first time in literal decades. I-I-I was a mess, it was insane to be around them again. Every good and bad thing from my childhood just came barreling in and—” Richie smacked himself lightly on the forehead, eyes wide underneath his glasses. _“—wham!_ Instant trauma!”

The audience filled the room with a warm but tentative laugh. Richie let them enjoy the moment.

Time felt like it had been exponentially slowing since the moment he spoke his first word into the mic. There was a pull on his chest as he glanced away from the light again, remembering how his heart fluttered as he took his seat at the Jade. The hollow distance that made its home between him and Eddie had felt both too wide, and not wide enough. While he had made himself get busy eating Chinese food, his overworked mind tried to find excuses to inch his way closer to his best friend or to keep the conversation going so he could look over Eddie’s face as he scowled.

There was so much space taken up by that empty seat. It was the stifling distance between him and the man he had loved in secret, and it was the horrible sorrow left behind by the loss of a friend. If Richie had control over the memory replaying in the back of his mind, he would have taken it and smashed it to pieces. He would have called Stan before the darkness got ahold of him. He would have broken down that wall between him and Eddie, wrapped him in his arms, and never let him go.

It was too late for any of that now.

Eddie had always been the brave one. Not him.

There was an attempt to take in a deep breath, but Richie’s lungs weren’t working well enough. He was starting to shake as he exhaled as slowly as he could. “Two of those friends— there were seven of us— but two of them.. they passed away. Right when I thought we should have been messing around and pretending we were kids again, they fucking died.”

The silence was deafening this time. Every word, every thought, every emotion Richie had been trapping inside him threatened to escape but they got stuck in his throat. He managed to wedge a few fingers underneath his glasses to cover his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose.

_Close it down, Richie. Keep it together._

“Shit. Alright, sorry to drop that on you guys.” His face was still hidden as he spoke up again. “But you know, all of you must have been wondering what happened to me five months ago. That’s what. I lost two of my best fucking friends and it fucked me up.”

Maybe he was straying away from the point— not that he knew what the point even was. After his hand dropped and Richie readjusted his glasses, he sniffled and quickly dried his cheeks of the tears that had escaped.

Another stretch of silence began.

What.. the _**FUCK**_ was he doing?

“This is supposed to be a comedy show. I know that’s what you paid for but tonight, that’s not what you’re gonna get. Go ahead and leave, or stay, or record this— honestly I don’t give a shit. But here’s what I want to say: if you love someone, you go and tell them right now. Right fucking now, okay?” The longer he spoke, the more desperate he sounded. And while his heart was breaking all over again, to the audience it looked like he was giving a lecture. “I never wanted to be a damn cliche. I never thought I would have enough of a life to be a cliche, but I got way more than I bargained for. And then I remembered I loved someone, and when I did, they died right in front of me.”

Richie certainly wasn’t keeping it together anymore. But the more he let himself break, the more it felt like he was reaching that destination— wherever he was headed, he was on the right track.

Suddenly, Richie skidded to a halt slightly off center stage, toes almost hanging off of the edge.

He was shaking his head, eyes unfocused but aimed at the floor in front of the first row of seats. “Twenty seven years. I knew it for _twenty seven years,_ and-and maybe I forgot, but I don’t think I ever _really_ forgot. Because you don’t just forget something like this. It’s so.. goddamn fucking unfair!” 

Who was he telling this story to? Who was he telling it _**for?**_ There were hundreds of people in front of him but he felt so entirely— _painfully—_ alone. “One of my friends who died, his name was Eddie. Eddie was my best friend. We did everything together, we annoyed the hell out of the rest of our friends.. I have no fucking clue how they ever put up with us. I remember when he went off to college and things just.. stopped. God I was devastated.” 

Richie tugged desperately at the fabric of his shirt over his heart, almost as if he wanted to rip it straight out of his chest.

“I was a kid, I had that stupid idea in my head that friends stuck together forever, no matter what. I _did_ actually believe that— or maybe I just _wanted_ to believe it. So when it wasn’t actually true, I think.. I think I lost myself a bit. And I think I was okay with losing myself, because there were certain things.. I didn’t like about myself. Certain things that scared the shit out of me, and made me feel _**wrong.**_ ” Richie’s next breath hitched in his throat, and it was the exact moment of panic and clarity he needed. His chest tightened and it was like he was underwater, too far away from the surface to get his next breath. 

“But it’s not wrong, is it?” _**No—** _he didn’t need anyone’s approval. He just needed his own, and he was finally fighting for it. Sure, he was fighting for it while standing on stage with a theater full of people, but did that really matter? He was shaking his head. “It can’t be. I won’t believe that it is, not anymore, not after I spent decades looking for someone I couldn’t remember I had already met.”__

__**Eddie.** _ _

__Richie’s chest was heaving up and down, and it wasn’t until he took a moment to stop and think that he realized how worked up he was. Something _was_ happening. And he finally knew what it was._ _

__“I’ve only ever loved one person.” Every word was quiet and sincere, replacing the loud intensity that was once there with thinly veiled sorrow._ _

__He was kicking and swimming towards the light, away from the dark water deep beneath him that had been his home for so long. It was familiar and cold and beckoned him back, but he wasn’t going to spend one more goddamn second down there._ _

___“His name was Eddie.”_ _ _

__His hand breached the surface._ _

__“So I guess what I’ve been trying to say is.. my name is Richie Tozier— I’m gay, and my heart is fucking broken.”_ _

__And finally, _ **finally—**_ he was able to take the first real breath of his entire life._ _

__The crowd erupted in a cacophony of voices— some cheers, some whistles, a few boos, words overlapping together so tightly that Richie couldn’t decipher a single one of them._ _

__He started to walk off stage, then abruptly stopped and turned back around to put the mic back on its stand. Why? **Hell if he knew.** His hands were shaking like a dry leaf in the wind, which made his attempt to return the mic take much longer than it should have, but he made it happen._ _

__His manager was following him as he walked through the area backstage, barking questions at him like a dog nipping at his heels. Richie ignored him completely and slammed the door shut in his face once he made it to his waiting room._ _

__Back against the door, hands with their palms flat to hold it closed and eyes wide— he was finally alone._ _

__Well, it took another good thirty seconds for the pounding and yelling to stop, but _then_ he was alone._ _

__With the amount of adrenaline pumping through him, Richie was surprised at how cold he felt. It was as if his hands had frozen to the wood, and once he peeled them off he began repeatedly bending his fingers to warm them up again._ _

__There were no thoughts in his head as he moved. After pushing himself away from the door, Richie grabbed the glass of water from earlier and downed it in one gulp as his ass met with the rickety chair at his disposal._ _

__**Holy fucking shit.** He had just come out of the closet in front of the entire goddamn world._ _

__Well, give or take a few billion, but he was sure that the news would spread fast enough._ _

__But he couldn’t worry about the entire rest of the world right now. If he didn’t concentrate hard enough, Richie was sure that he would start cracking apart like a piece of glass thrown into a fire. But the build up had been so slow and so unbearably painful that now he wasn’t even sure that shattering to pieces would be a bad thing. They could make a mosaic from his pointed edges and put him back together in a way that would make all of this easier to live with. He could be new again, and maybe even just a little bit beautiful._ _

___**No.**_ _ _

__This was not that kind of story._ _

__Richie was not destined to break apart tonight. This was his attempt at putting himself back together, because the truth was that he shattered apart back in Derry. He was sure that there were still pieces of him there, buried several stories beneath the wreckage of an old house on Neibolt Street. He didn’t want those pieces back unless it meant that the person he left them with came back too. They didn’t belong to him anymore._ _

__Tonight wasn’t even about trying to refill the gaping holes left behind— it was about something more than that. It was a love letter of sorts— another oath, another promise._ _

__To Eddie. For Eddie. Because of Eddie._ _

__Richie wouldn’t keep the two of them in the shadows. He would refuse to let them get stomped into the mud and taunted, he would fight back against the years of denial and anger and unsaid words. Derry could go fuck itself— Richie had loved Eddie from the very start, and there was no way in hell he would keep that to himself anymore._ _

__That’s what this story was._ _

__A love story. For the things he regretted never saying. For the feelings he wasted, for the cruelty of their ending, and for his own goddamn sanity._ _

__Richie would have to love himself for them both now. It was a tough job, one that he's struggled with for 40 years, but for Eddie he would do it._ _

__For Eddie— he would try his hardest to be brave in the only way he knew how. Even as he finally let himself cry and could barely contain his sobs, Richie was making that promise._ _

__Starting. Now._ _

**Author's Note:**

> would you guys be interested in another chapter where the rest of the losers club blow up his phone and give him some love and support? i might need to write that tbh


End file.
